


Swing Hard (It's Always the Quiet Ones Remix)

by jibrailis



Category: due South
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-21 23:00:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1567175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jibrailis/pseuds/jibrailis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray's at a wedding, and Fraser's got no voice, and man this whole thing sucks beaver balls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swing Hard (It's Always the Quiet Ones Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kinetikatrue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinetikatrue/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Silence Speaks Louder Than Words (Sometimes It Doesn't)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/654851) by [kinetikatrue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinetikatrue/pseuds/kinetikatrue). 



Of course Fraser had to come down with goddamn laryngitis. 

Ray told him. Ray _told_ him. You put your mouth on any and all pieces of lichen on the ground, even if to verify its ge— genome?— genus (whatever), and eventually the lichen will bite back. Or forget the lichen. What about mysterious streaks of dirt or patches of oil? The point is, Fraser shouldn't have been going around licking things, even in the pursuit of justice, because then he wouldn't get sick just in time for Stella's wedding, leaving his buddy Ray in the lurch.

"I told you," Ray hissed. "I _told_ you."

Fraser had a distinctly pissy expression on his face, and maybe Ray should've taken pity on him on account of the laryngitis and the fever Fraser'd been running last night, but Ray didn't have any pities left to give. 

"What am I gonna do now?" he said. "We're in Florida. Look at all these palm trees! That ain't natural, Frase. Trees aren't supposed to look like that. They're like plastic." He gave the nearest tree a kick for good measure. Fraser looked horrified. The tree remained impassive. They were standing outside Miami International Airport, waiting for a hotel bus to bring them to their rooms, and the heat was bubbling sweat on Ray's scratchy skin, making him feel too big for his bones, like a giant monster waiting to explode.

Fraser bent over his steno notebook and started scribbling. He handed the notebook over when he was done. It said, _Now is not the appropriate time to be having a mental breakdown, Ray_.

"I'm not having a mental breakdown," Ray said immediately. What? He wasn't. He was calm. Cool. He was the Iceman — pretty much literally, considering they'd just come down from the Yukon where Fraser was currently posted, come down to Florida from a land that had no palm trees, no squiggly waves of heat rising from the sidewalk. Where Ray and Fraser had just flown in from (after three layovers, and one silent argument over whether Fraser needed to take his meds) was all snow, snow, snow. Ray missed that, already. He'd gotten used to the snow. The snow was their friend.

Not Stella. Stella wasn't his friend anymore, if they'd ever really been friends to begin with. But she was his ex-wife, his Stel, and that meant something. Ray was fine with dragging his ass halfway across the continent for her wedding, only did it have to be to that bald schmoozer?

Friend. Vecchio was Fraser's friend. Which explained Fraser's presence on the trip, and not for the first time Ray was suddenly very glad that Stella was marrying Vecchio, because if she was marrying some random, then Fraser would got no reason to come, now would he? Ray would have to fly out alone, and that would blow. Big time.

"Okay," he said out loud, wiping the sweat of his palms on his jeans. He put on his sunglasses, smiled his best let's-go-kick-some-heads grin. "We got this. No problemo. Fraser, let's go — Fraser?" He whipped around. "Benton Fraser, get back here!"

Stupid Mountie had wandered off and was helping an old lady load her bags into the back of the taxi. The taxi driver stood beside them, watching helplessly, like the guy knew it was his job and his tip, but what could he do when there was a six foot tall Canadian being ruthlessly helpful? 

The lady was gushing something at Fraser. Fraser smiled and touched the brim of his hat. Or where the brim of his hat would've been, if he were wearing one. Thank god Ray had convinced him to leave off the serge. The serge would make no sense in Floridan weather. The serge didn't even make sense in Chicago.

"Fraser, get back here," Ray said. "I gotta keep an eye on you all the time, do I? Make sure you don't fall into pools or start a war, worse than a puppy — come on. Our bus is here." He grabbed Fraser by the wrist and dragged him off.

Fraser looked down at where Ray was touching him, fingers around bare skin. Fraser had rolled up his sleeves. He was as hot as Ray was.

"What?" Ray dropped him self-consciously. 

Fraser shook his head. _Nothing_.

It wasn't a thing they did. The touching. Even though Ray thought about it all the time, like, he thought about touching Fraser even more than he thought about jelly doughnuts and how much he missed them in the north — which was all the freakin' time, let's be real. He had left Chicago to shack up with the Ken Doll of the North, living in a cottage in the middle of the wilderness where there were actual wolves howling around them. They lived together in this tiny space, where Ray cooked and did laundry and fixed machines, and Fraser went off on patrols while fielding off questions from locals about who was this scruffy ex-cop living with him, and what was the nature of their relationship. They did all that, and Ray was still too nervous to touch him sometimes.

Maybe it was Florida that made it worse. Ray had gotten used to Fraser in the north, Fraser in jeans and flannels and steel-tipped boots, Fraser who was big and solid and messier, somehow, than he had ever been in Chicago. The Yukon was in Fraser's blood, and it relaxed him to be back there — you'd have to be an idiot not to see it. In the Yukon, Fraser shot guns and brought home animal pelts and ate sloppily and even snored.

Ray looked at this Florida-Fraser, this Fraser who had gone on vacation with him. He was silent, of course, because of the laryngitis, and that made him feel different. Like he wasn't Ray's friend no more, just a dark, handsome stranger who Ray suddenly felt awkward around. In the Yukon, it was just the two of them, but here they were at Stella's wedding, and there were going to be so many people there, more people than either of them had seen in a while.

They unpacked in the hotel. Fraser had gotten them one room with two beds — and what did that mean? Good sign, because Fraser didn't mind sharing with Ray, he wasn't sick of Ray, but if Ray had held out hope that some hanky-panky might've been going down, that the wedding would turn Fraser _amorous_ or some shit, he'd have been disappointed. Fraser set to unpacking with military precision, and when he was finished, popped two more lozenges and went down to explore the hotel.

Ray wondered what he would do if Ray sidled up to him and said, _So I been thinking, and maybe some of this thinking is about you. Specifically your mouth_.

OPTION A: Fraser would be confused. My mouth, Ray? he would ask, and would probably lick his lips, thinking Ray was telling him they were dry or something — like it was a _medical_ opinion Ray was offering, like Ray was just a concerned pal.

OPTION B: Fraser would understand but be too polite to say no. Well, you must know that I consider you a very dear friend, he would say, all the while Ray's guts would churn inside of him like a meat grinder.

OPTION C: Kissing? Sex? Uh, more kissing???

OPTION D: Ray was too much of a coward to ever say anything, and probably a dolphin would rise from the hotel pool and eat him.

 

* * *

 

He ran into Stella by the hotel restaurant. She looked, well, she looked absolutely freaking gorgeous in her somber grey dress and matching hat, and when Ray hugged her, he found that it didn't hurt at all. It was good, actually, to see Stel looking so beautiful and so happy — it was really good. 

"I'm so glad you could make it," she said. "I have to admit that I wasn't sure. But I wanted you to be here. I really did."

"Yeah, well, I made it," Ray said. "Just in case I need to punch Vecchio in the face. I'm your man."

Stella laughed. She patted him on the shoulder. "Is Constable Fraser with you? I'm sure that I saw him somewhere by the pool, but he was walking too quickly for me to flag him down."

"Fraser's here somewhere," Ray said. "No idea where. He's sick, though. Lost his voice. So don't try to make small talk with him."

"I don't think small talk was ever his specialty," Stella said dryly, and oh man, Ray had almost forgotten that Stella had been the one woman in Chicago completely immune to Fraser's charms. He grinned. 

"He's alright," he said. "Once you get to know him. And if there are caribou involved. Then he gets real chatty."

"I'll take your word for it," Stella said. "Oh god, there's Mrs. Abernathy waving at me in the corner. Quick, Ray, do something scandalous. Distract her."

But Ray was a respectable, upstanding citizen now, who did his own laundry and everything, so he left Stella to her own ingenious devices — Mrs. Abernathy did not look like the sort of lady you wanted to mess around with. He got a beer and wandered over to the pool where he found Fraser deep in one-sided conversation with a leggy blonde bombshell who was leaning forward and looking _very_ attentive at whatever Fraser wasn't saying.

"Hey," Ray said gruffly. He plopped himself down on a deck chair.

Fraser looked up and smiled. Ray's chest went ba-boom.

The blonde bombshell narrowed her eyes at him. "I'm Ray," he told her.

"Gina," she said. "Bride's side of the family."

"Gina?" Ray nearly swallowed his tongue. "Stella's cousin Gina? Weren't you twelve the last time I saw you?" Yeah, he was definitely remembering a scrawny kid with freckles and overalls, not this — not this man-eater who looked like she wanted Fraser as her aperitif. 

"Oh," she said with realization. "Stanley. Uh, it's been a while."

"Yeah," Ray said.

"Yeah," said Gina.

They both looked at Fraser, who smiled vaguely and scribbled something in his notebook. He showed it to the both of them. _How wonderful it is that you two have run into each other after all this time_. He added an exclamation mark to the end, and after some thought, a smiley face.

"I need a drink," Ray said, lurching to his feet. "Frase? Gina? Drinks?" He flagged down a passing waiter. "Oh hooray — drinks."

 

* * *

 

In the bedroom that night, as Fraser was brushing his teeth and Ray was flipping through the sports channels, Ray said, "You can do whatever you want. I don't wanna make you think that you can't, or something. Because you can."

Fraser turned to look at him. He furrowed his brow.

"I mean, hopefully not with Gina 'cos she's forever twelve years old in my head. But with someone else. Or nobody else. It's your choice." Ray flipped his hand casually. "What happens in Florida stays in Florida."

Fraser went into the bathroom. "Hey," Ray said, "are you even listening to me?" He could hear Fraser turn on the faucet, followed by the sound of running water. Fraser spat out the toothpaste and gargled. When he returned to the room, his face was clean and he was rubbing a towel over his jaw.

"I'm trying to have a serious conversation with you," Ray complained.

Fraser cocked his head.

"Don't do that. It makes you look like a spaniel," Ray said.

Now Fraser just looked annoyed. He took the remote control from Ray's hand and changed the channel. Now they were watching Hockey Night in Canada. Great. Ray let Fraser do his thing. He leaned back against his pillows and tried not to stew. He was being magnanimous here, not that Fraser needed to know. Fraser didn't need to know about Ray's giant-ass crush on him, even though it should have been obvious, because why else would he have followed him to the Yukon? Couldn't be anything but love that made him live among misfits and the cold. It was embarrassing, anyhow. Ray groaned and slid down under his blankets.

Fraser was watching him. He was trying to make it seem like he wasn't, but every now and then his eyes would flick from hockey to Ray. Hockey-hockey-Ray-hockey-hockey-Ray.

"What?" Ray grumbled. "Need another lozenge? I've got a whole pack in the drawer."

Fraser bit his bottom lip. Then he shook his head. _Good night_ , he mouthed. He reached over and turned off the TV and then the lights, in that order. It was dark suddenly, very dark, and all Ray could hear was the sound of their breathing.

 

* * *

 

"Here," Ray said the morning of the wedding. "I poured you out a spoon full of that cough syrup. And I got you some more lozenges." 

Fraser peered at him from underneath his blankets. He glanced pointedly at the alarm clock — okay, so it was four a.m., and even Fraser wasn't gonna be up at four a.m. for a wedding. But Ray was a bundle of nerves, twitching as he sat on the edge of his bed, fully dressed and shaven. "I can't sleep," he admitted. "Feels like there's a bomb going off in my head."

Fraser yawned. 

"Never mind," Ray said. "It's got nothing to do with you. Go back to sleep. I'll wake you up when it's time."

But Fraser was already lumbering out of bed, his hair tousled like a beaver's nest. Ray watched (tried not to stare) as Fraser put on his jeans and a plain shirt, and then slipped on his socks and his boots. He turned to Ray. _Well?_ , his expression said, and Ray let out a breath.

"Feel like taking a walk?"

Fraser nodded.

"I mean a real walk. Not inside of the hotel, but outside. Down by the street or whatever."

Fraser wrote in his notebook. _Whatever you want is fine with me, Ray_.

"You don't need to write my name at the end of that sentence," Ray said. "Ain't nobody else you could be talking to at this hour of the night, is there?"

Fraser smiled. Wrote, _No, Ray_.

Ray felt such a surge of affection that it nearly choked him. "Come on," he said instead, turning towards the door. Fraser trailed him quietly, and they left the hotel, walking past the late-night guests and the sleepy concierge, out into the nighttime sidewalks. It was cooler now than it was during the day, though the same foreign heat settled over them both. Ray scratched his arms. Looked up at the moon.

"Pretty," he said.

Fraser wrote, _"The moon is a friend for the lonesome to talk to" — Carl Sandburg._

"What're you trying to say?" Ray asked. "Fraser, are you lonely?"

 _Not anymore_ , Fraser wrote.

"Oh," said Ray. "Uh, well, that's good. That's real good." He didn't know what else to say, so he just continued walking. Fraser kept pace with him easily, and they watched the cars go down the nearby avenue, one by one.

"It must suck," Ray said after a bit, "getting sick right before the wedding. I know you and Vecchio probably wanna catch up — you guys are best friends, right? But here you are, can't say a single thing. Not that the girls mind, I bet. I bet they love the strong, silent type." He looked up at Fraser, frowning. "But you aren't really. They just think that 'cos they don't know you." 

Fraser showed him the notebook. _What are you saying?_

"Nothing," Ray said. "I'm just babbling. Stella's getting married this morning, and I can't stop my mouth from running. Forget it." He walked forward. "Doesn't that rock look like Dief?"

Fraser studied it. Then he nodded.

 _Ray_ , he wrote in his notebook, _forgive me for returning to this subject that clearly makes you uncomfortable, but you seem strangely fixated on my relationship with women at this wedding_.

"No I ain't," said Ray.

Fraser jabbed what he had just written, in emphasis.

"You've eaten too much seal fat," Ray said. "Now you've just gone crazy, buddy."

 _I assure you I am perfectly sound of mind,_ Fraser wrote. _My last psychiatric test notwithstanding_.

"Then — don't say what you don't mean," Ray said. "Do me at least that much, okay? Don't say stuff that we'll regret when we're back north 'cos it wasn't true." Fraser opened his mouth to protest, but Ray wasn't in the mood to hear it, wasn't much in the mood for anything. Wedding was in a few hours — three, two, one, blastoff.

 

* * *

 

He didn't remember much of it, after. Just bunches of lace, and Francesca and Ma Vecchio crying, and Stella's glowing skin like she swallowed the sun, and dainty pink bowling ball cakes that looked hilariously tiny in Vecchio's hand when he tried to feed them to Stella. Then Fraser standing by his best friend, the two of them in camera — camderad — camaraderie (whatever) while Ray nursed his drink and tried to pay attention to Gina telling him about her engineering studies at the University of Chicago.

"Is that what you're gonna do when you get home?" he asked.

"Yeah," Gina said. "I love weddings and all, but just between you and me, I can't wait to be home."

"Home," Ray said. With Fraser in their cabin in the thatch that they'd built themselves, where Fraser sang depressing songs of people dying of scurvy, where Ray whined about the lack of pizza and satellite reception, where they had dogs together — an actual team of dogs — and where in the mornings Ray would wake up and make them both instant coffee, and then join Fraser by the window as they watched the snow come down. He flinched.

"What am I doing, Gina?" he asked.

"Don't ask me," she said. "I've been trying to figure that out since day one."

"Be right back," he said, and she shrugged as he excused himself to walk up to Fraser and Vecchio, just in time to hear Fraser rasp, "Well, the migration patterns of Canadian geese are no laughing matter, Ray—"

"Hi," said Ray.

Vecchio frowned at him. Ray didn't care. Screw Vecchio anyway. 

"Didn't know you had your voice back, Frase," Ray said. "Congratulations."

"Ah, yes," Fraser said sheepishly. "Just now. It must have been the fortifying effect of the fruit punch." Still, his voice didn't sound so solid, and Ray told him that. 

"No, you're right," Fraser said. "I should use it sparingly. In fact, I was just telling Ray Vecchio—"

"Beat it," said Ray.

"That was quite rude of you," Fraser said as they watched Vecchio walk away. "We are guests at his wedding, and should be expected to show our best hospitality."

Ray ignored him. "Look, I got something I wanna say to you," he said. Better to rip it all off now, where the pain could be clean and fresh, than let it fester and turn into something that would ruin the best friendship he's ever had. "Last night, uh, you were right on the money. When you said that I — well, I mean, you said a lot of things about me, some of them not 100% true, but the _gist_ of it, what you were really trying to get at when you were talking about women—"

"Ray," said Fraser. He looked panicked. "You don't need to say it. In fact, I think it might be better if we simply forget the matter."

Ray felt like a wrecking ball had crashed into his lungs. "You mean that? Just — forget it?"

Fraser looked miserable. "You've been agitated this entire time, and I understand it must be painful to see the woman you love marry another, and since neither of us are quite adept at expressing our true feelings—"

"Wait, what?" Ray said. "What's Stella got to do with all this?"

"Everything!" Fraser said in exasperation. "You're clearly still in love with her, Ray!"

What the what?

"That," said Ray, "is a bunch of bullshit."

"You have been acting morose this entire wedding, and that is the most logical conclusion I can draw from the facts," Fraser said, but Ray interrupted him by leaning over and grabbing him by the shoulder. He brought their faces together, so close that he could feel the heat of Fraser's shaky breath. Oh, he thought, oh. They'd really been stupid this entire time. Someone should give them a medal for how dumb they'd been.

"It ain't Stella," Ray said. 

Fraser swallowed. "Then?"

"Yeah," Ray said, bobbing his head. "Yeah."

"I don't quite understand," Fraser said, sounding like he was trying to come to grips with the changing world around them. "I confess I _think_ I might understand, but perhaps a touch more clarity would help, particularly before I do something both of us will regret."

"Fuck clarity," Ray said. "You know I'm no good at clarity."

"You're beautiful, Ray," Fraser blurted, and it was weird and old-fashioned and romantic, and god, just so _Canadian_ that Ray started laughing softly, feeling the weight on his lungs expand and lift.

"You're not drunk, are you?"

"No," Fraser said.

"Beautiful like the moon," Ray marveled. "Beautiful like a six-pack of beer."

"All of those things," Fraser said despairingly, "and then some. I _have_ been trying to tell you, but you don't make anything easy. Not when we are at home, and certainly not here. Every time I have tried to broach the topic, you have been less than forthcoming. You might really want to work on being better-natured, so we can avoid these problems in the future."

"Shhh," Ray said, grinning. He pressed their foreheads together, right there in the middle of the wedding reception. Fraser stopped talking — he finally, finally shut up. "I hear you now, loud and clear."

 

* * *

 

They ended up missing their flight out, and racking up a massive room service bill to boot.

"Just charge it to Vecchio," Ray said, climbing over Fraser and licking his collarbone. Fraser might have objected, might have even rolled his eyes, but all arguments were quickly forgotten as he flipped Ray over onto the bed.

It was snowing when they eventually made it home.

(They never did find out who paid the bill).


End file.
